


Make It Count

by lavellanpls



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, Graphic Violence, Injury, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-05-29 17:11:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15077873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavellanpls/pseuds/lavellanpls
Summary: Lavellan & co. are captured by Red Templars.-They never should have been there.They were camped far out in the icy forests of Emprise du Lion, sent in search of some mythic relic Lavellan wasn’t even positive existed. It was supposed to be a simple recovery mission. She wasn’t supposed to need a full party, because it was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be a lot of things. Solas had warned her.Fenedhis,he’dwarnedher.The Red Templars attacked in the dead of night, under cover of a starless sky.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags.

They never should have been there.

They were camped far out in the icy forests of Emprise du Lion, sent in search of some mythic relic Lavellan wasn’t even positive existed. It was supposed to be a simple recovery mission. She wasn’t supposed to need a full party, because it was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be a lot of things. Solas had warned her. _Fenedhis,_ he’d _warned_ her.

The Red Templars attacked in the dead of night, under cover of a starless sky.

Their party had fended off attacks before—from more formidable foes, surely—but it was cold, and late, and dark, and they simply hadn’t been prepared. Solas had barely even stood before a templar’s spell purge sent him reeling, suffocating, magic ripped from him like air from his lungs. An armored brute snatched up a screaming Sera before she could scramble for her bow, and a hastily half-dressed Lavellan surrendered with raised hands and dark, narrowed eyes.

They bound their wrists and shoved them to their knees in the frozen dirt. Sera spit and swore and hurled threats and insults that burned with rage, but Lavellan never uttered a word.

Before them, a pacing templar spoke. A Knight-Captain. “You’ll have one and only one chance to answer,” he vowed. “So consider your words carefully.” He stopped to face them, eyes unfeeling stone. “Which one of you is the Inquisitor?”

Lilith hissed “ _ladybird_ ,” like invoking a curse, and Solas watched Sera’s wild fury shrink away to eerie silence, lips pressed tight in a quivering line.

None moved. None spoke.

_“Which one?”_ he demanded, shout sharp enough to make Sera’s sealed jaw start to tremble.

None spoke.

_“Which?”_ The Knight-Captain unsheathed his sword and sunk the blade into the dirt, eyes gleaming dark in the dying light of their campfire. _“One?”_

A young templar behind him scratched nervously at his collar. “Look, the report just said an ‘elven woman, light hair,’ it didn’t come with a fuckin’ portrait.”

His comrade beside him gave him a vicious jab. “Well which one _glows,_ you idiot!”

“Neither of them!” he defended, and mimed some vague, desperate motion with his palm. “She’s not doing the…you know…rift…thing.”

“One of ‘ems an archer, and one’s a warrior. How much more do you need to know?”

“Fucking _which?_ ” He groaned into his palm, face twisted in frustration. “I told you we should have attacked in daylight!”

“And get your bloody head cut off? Are you mad? Look, you’ve heard the reports—no one survives run-ins with armed Inquisition.”

One of them shoved at Sera with the toe of his boot. “This one’s taller, isn’t it? That’s a…warrior thing, right?”

“Oi, this one’s one of them forest cunts. You know, with the tattoos? Got to be the archer.”

“I dunno, looks awful beat up. Look at that scar. That’s got to be a close-quarters fighter, doesn’t it?”

The templar before them made a motion like a smile. “Here. I’ve got a better way to find out.” A gauntleted hand sank into the bones of Solas’ shoulder and jerked him backward. “The elven apostate,” the sneering templar announced, fingers curling tight. “The knife-ear mage shacking up with the Inquisitor. I’ve got an important question for you.” He crushed his face between his fingers with a bruising grip and forced him to face his bound companions. “Which one should keep her ears?”

No.

_No._

Lavellan caught his eyes in a fierce stare and hissed a string of Elven, voice a low warning. Their captors heard whispered gibberish. Solas heard a stark command.

“ _Harel_ ,” she ground through clenched teeth. “ _Ama ash_.”

_Lie. Protect her._

Solas only stared.

“ _Ay,_ stop that murmuring! Or you’ll be losing more than ears.”

“Pick one, mage,” their captor taunted. “Or we’ll take ‘em both.”

No, no…

“Five. Four.”

“ _Harel, harel…!_ ”

One of the templars struck her across the face hard enough to snap her neck back, and it took all of Solas’ strength not to react.

“ _Fine,_ ” the templar spit. “Take both their ears, then.”

Solas did not have time for the panic to fully sink in. Lilith halted their advance with a shout of “Wait!” and nodded for the Knight-Captain to come closer. When he approached, knelt down to better hear her speak, she reeled back and slammed the crown of her head into his nose. She cackled laughter even as he swore and struck her flat across the jaw. When he reached for her throat she spit a mouthful of blood at his face.

“All that templar training,” she mocked, “and this is the finest the Chantry can offer?”

_“Stop,”_ Solas hissed low. It was the first he’d spoken, and the way Lilith’s head whipped back to him made him wonder if it was a mistake.

She uttered rushed Elven, a whispered command none but he could translate.

“ _I can take it_ ,” she insisted. “ _Let them have me,_ _I can take it._ ”

The Knight-Captain turned his attention back to him. “Would you like another chance?” he offered. Bands of bruising were already beginning to form beneath his eyes, his nose surely broken. When he laid his hand atop Solas’ shoulder the softness of the touch was more terrifying than anything. “Which one,” he asked, “is Lilith Lavellan?”

Solas looked to Sera. Breathed. “Her,” he lied.

Sera stayed deathly silent. The Knight-Captain nodded. “Very good,” he praised. “Then you won’t mind if we take this one’s head.”

A snap of his fingers, a cold smile, and a waiting templar stepped up to grasp a fistful of Lilith’s hair and _yank_. Another drew his sword.

Solas tried his best. Truly. But no one was without a breaking point.

He shouted her name when they bared her neck. Couldn’t help it. The cold look of betrayal in her eyes cut through to the bone, but there was nothing he could have done.

The Knight-Captain smirked.

 “I must say I’m a little disappointed,” he admitted. “I’d been so looking forward to killing that one. A pity. Oh well—I imagine the fate Corypheus has waiting for her will prove a fitting rival to anything I could have dreamt up.” He snapped for his men’s attention. “Kill the rest,” he ordered. “Take whatever’s valuable and burn the bodies.”

It wasn’t a cry or a shout that stalled them, but a derisive smirk.

“Oh, you don’t want to do that,” Lilith flatly informed.

The Knight-Captain slowly turned to fix her with a smug stare. “Oh, I think slaughtering your little friends is exactly what I want to do, Herald.”

“And lose your only leverage?” She _tsked_. “You’re going to need them alive if you want to make any kind of bargain with me. Come on, you should know that. Hasn’t anyone ever taught you how to negotiate?”

“I don’t need to bargain,” he retorted. “I have everything I need from you.”

“But don’t you want to keep your men?”

He faltered. Just barely, just for the tiniest fraction of a second, but he faltered. “Excuse me?”

“Your men,” she said again. She nodded toward her bound companions. “For every one of them that bleeds, I’ll take three of your men’s heads. So did you want to keep them, or should I just collect those now?”

The Knight-Captain attempted to ignore her, but the act was unconvincing. “And someone gag her, won’t you? I’m tired of hearing her speak.”

“That’d be mistake number four,” she plainly stated. “This kidnapping isn’t going very well for you, is it? Here. I’ll cut you a deal. You let everyone else go, and I’ll come with you willingly. Without killing any of you.”

He slowly approached. Stopped. Tapped his foot in thought. “Mistake number four, is it?”

“And just _careening_ toward five, aren’t you?”

The hollowness of his slow-growing smile chilled Solas to the core. “And what,” he asked, “were the other three?”

“The first mistake was attacking me,” she primly informed. She nodded briskly toward her companions. “The second was attacking _them_.”

“And the third?”

“Oh, you’ve been making mistake number three since this whole botched abduction started. Probably why they sent you on this suicide mission in the first place. If this debacle is any indication of your work ethic, I’m sure your superiors have been just _itching_ to get rid of you. Kind of cruel of them to toss you to the wolves like this, though. But I guess that’s what happens when you’re this bad at your job.”

The Knight-Captain’s mouth twitched, jaw tensing. “What a mouthy little elf you are. Don’t worry. Corypheus will tear your arrogance from you as easily as he’ll tear the flesh from your bones.”

“Lucky for me,” she said, “that’s where I keep my second, secret stash of arrogance.”

“You’ll die screaming.”

She craned her neck upward with a narrow-eyed slash of a smile. “Suck my dick.”

Solas thought he would hit her again. And judging by the twitch of his shoulder, he almost did. But the urge dissipated with an even exhalation. “We’re done here,” he stated. “I have what I came for. Leave no survivors.”

Lilith’s face remained unchanged. Unafraid. The tilt of her crooked smile only widened. “Can I ask you something, Captain?”

“Whatever you’re playing at, elf, if won’t-”

“I just wanted to ask a question.”

“ _What?_ ” he growled.

She looked up at him, serene despite her swollen face. “Have you ever heard of me losing someone from my inner circle?”

“Shut up, you wretched little-”

“But have you?”

“I told you to- !”

“But have you, though?”

A nervous young templar behind him answered before anyone could stop him. “She hasn’t, ser.”

“ _Don’t answer her, you idiot,”_ he snapped. When he turned back to Lilith he was met with a smug, bloody smile.

“Ever wonder why that is?” she sweetly asked.

The Knight-Captain held his hand up for silence, cutting his men off before they could further indulge her. He knelt before her to take her chin in hand and hold her steady, eye to eye. “My orders were to bring you in alive,” he said. “But no one ever said you had to be in one piece.”

“Then by all means…” She grinned. “Hit me.”

And oh, the Knight-Captain was all too happy to oblige.

The cold sterility of his smirk left Solas full of dread. He silently rose and motioned for one of his men to approach. “You heard the Herald,” he said. “Go on. Give her what she wants.”

The templar silently nodded.

He hit her, and she laughed. A full, gleeful cackle.

He hit her again. Again. And she laughed even as she spat blood on the ground.

“Is that it?” she asked, and managed to sound condescending despite the blood seeping between the lines of her teeth. “If this is how you fight, it’s no wonder I kill so many of you.”

He hit her again, _hard,_ and Solas watched her cheek cave in. Watched her eye socket crack. The Knight-Captain ordered one of his men to hold Solas still when he tried to break, pulling desperately at his binds. Struggling against their grip only earned him another burning spell purge. He screamed for them to stop, _to let her go,_ and the Captain only laughed.

“Let him watch,” he taunted. “Let him see what disobedience earns.”

Beside him Sera squeezed her eyes shut and sobbed, jaw still held tightly shut. Solas tried to muster rage but felt only cold and sinking terror.

_“Again,”_ Lilith demanded. A burst blood vessel flooded the whites of her eye with red. _“Hit me.”_

This time when his gauntleted fist collided with her face Solas heard the unmistakable crunch of her nose breaking. Her body went lax, head dropping for the tense span of one heartbeat—two heartbeats—and then she straightened back up, whipped her burning eyes back to his face, and with a feral smile parted her lips to let blood drain down her chin.

Her mad cackle sent a shudder down his spine.

“You’ve got one more hit,” she warned. “Better make it count.”

A final blow knocked her back to fall hard on her shoulder, and Solas heard a horrible _crack_ like a branch snapping in half. When the templar jerked her up by her collar he saw her thumb snapped flat, bone broken. Her left eye was swollen, glued shut by oozing blood. Her lip had split against her teeth.

“Do you know what your third mistake was?” she asked, and laughter bubbled beneath the blood in her throat. She grinned. Or maybe just bared her teeth. “You let me bleed.”

She ripped her broken hand free, bones crushed in enough to loosen her binds, and with a feral roar and a red-glowing slash of claws took the head off her nearest captor.

“ _One_ ,” she seethed. Her eyes leveled on a man now backing away, and the furious slash of her mouth sharpened into a gleaming smile. “ _Two_.”

Two more had already fled by the time the second headless body hit the ground.

She ducked a templar’s clumsy lunge at her shoulder and swiveled back to lay him flat with a vicious kick that snapped his ribs in; narrowly dodged another’s shield bash in time to drop low, swipe up his fallen comrade’s sword, and cut him down at the knees. The gut-wrenching scream that erupted from him was cut abruptly short when a clean slice separated his head from his body.

“ _Three,_ ” she hissed. _“Four._ ” A savage scream, a burning slash, and a charging templar was felled by a red-flaming claw ripping through his gut. _“Five.”_

She flung the rope dangling from her wrist around the neck of an armored brute, pulled tight until his face turned red, and used his wavering body as a shield to block an arrow loosed by a nearby archer. As his knees finally buckled she bit out “ _Six,_ ” and snapped his neck.

When her eyes snapped up to meet the horrified stare of the Knight-Captain the slow curl of her smile was made only more maniacal by the red staining her teeth. “ _Seven.”_

He raised his sword, but not fast enough.

A hard punch straight to his throat made a sickening crunch as his trachea crushed in, and as he crumpled, choking, to the ground she crouched down beside him and _tsked_. “I told you to make it count,” she reminded. “You know what else I told you?”

She stood, spit a mouthful of blood into the snow, and slammed the heel of her boot into his head until there was nothing left to smash. When she wiped her mouth with the back of her broken hand it smeared red across her face like war paint. _“Suck it.”_

The few remaining templars she hadn’t dismembered had all fled. No one noticed the one left hiding behind a crumbling stone wall until he charged. Solas shouted a warning that came too late, and watched, helpless, as he ran her through with a sword to the gut.

Before he could yank it out Lilith’s hand snapped over his, grip tight. Eyes still fixed in an unblinking glare, she wrapped her other hand around the blade and _pulled,_ sinking it deeper into her gut while a gaping templar watched in horror.

“You think a sword could kill me?” she demanded, voice sharpened to a steely edge. “ _You think any of you could kill me?_ ”

The templar released her, stumbled backward, and fled screaming into the night.

And not a moment too soon. As soon as he disappeared from view Lilith crumpled to her knees with a long, howling shout: “ _Fuck!_ My _nose!”_

Sera, previously a silent observer shrunken to the side, screamed. “ _What the fuck was that?!”_

“The reason I’ve never lost a game of Wicked Grace,” she dutifully informed, weakly miming a bow. “I’m _exceptional_.” She looked down at the sword still stuck through her middle, grimaced, and blew out a slow breath. “Someone should probably heal me, though. Soon. Right now, if you can.” She touched a shaking hand to the steadily darkening stain bleeding up through her clothes. “Guys, look, I got his sword!”

“He fucking stabbed you!”

“Yeah,” she said, “but I got his sword!”

She cackled, grin dripping, and swiftly passed out.

Solas wasted no time.

The first weak ebb of returning magic was channeled into a spark of flame that burned through the rope binding his hands. He was at her side in an instant.

“Hey!” Sera shouted. “ _Hey!_ What about me? Hey, untie me!”

Solas ignored her. Couldn’t have broken his focus even if he’d tried. His hands shook as he cradled Lilith close, careful not to touch the blade still skewered through her. He heard the wet rasp of blood in her lungs.

Sera’s shout grew frantic. “What’s happening? Is she dead? Solas!”

“ _Quiet,_ ” he ordered, but the fury was undercut by a traitorous waver. “Just…give me a moment.”

“ _Is she dead?”_

He slipped a hand beneath her head, the other wrapped around her wrist. She was alive, but losing blood. Drowning in it. “Lilith?” His voice spiked, unable to remain calm. He gently pushed blood-matted hair from her tattooed forehead and felt his chest tighten. “ _Lilith?_ ”

The flood of returning magic was a bliss he had no time to savor. As quickly as his magic could seep back he poured it into her body in healing waves. “It will be alright,” he promised her, but his voice was too unsteady to offer any kind of comfort. “Just- Just give me a moment, it will be alright…”

“ _Solas, is she dead?”_

“I have her,” he called back, but the words snagged on something in his throat. He couldn’t remember when he started crying. He certainly never meant to. He touched a hand to her bloody face and felt hysteria flare dangerously within him. “I have her,” he repeated. “It will be alright…”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Is she gonna die?”

“No.” It should have been phrased as a gentle reassurance, but this was his sixth time answering that question, and by now Solas was starkly out of gentleness.

“She looks dead.”

“She often looks dead,” he pointed out, to which Sera gave a thoughtful nod and admitted, “Yeah, that’s fair I guess.”

The first hour had been…shaky. There were two things for which Lilith was incredibly lucky—first, that the templar who stabbed her hadn’t pulled his sword out, and second, that Solas was a more skilled healer than most. If not for the first she would have bled out in minutes. If not for the second she would still be bleeding now. Frantically sealing her wound was a stressful enough endeavor, made even more difficult by Sera’s repeated insistence to _“just yank it out!”,_ but working to keep out infection was a far more complicated trial. Hopefully one Solas was up to.

“Can you fix it?” Sera asked through a face full of snot and tears. Not even six assurances were enough to keep her chin from trembling. “You’re supposed to be good at this, right?”

“I am very good,” he affirmed. Thank whatever absent gods there may be. “And yes, I believe I can.”

Sera sniffled, drawn in on herself by the campfire with her knees hugged tight to her chest. “I thought they killed her. They hit her face and she- I saw it _break,_ just… _break,_ like it was made of- something crumbly. Not a _face_.” She sucked in a deep breath that released far too shakily. “I thought I watched her frigging _die.”_

“She will not die,” he murmured offhand. All his focus was presently poured into trying to realign the bones of her shattered face. Bone was trickier to mend than simple flesh—especially tricky to reform in their original shape—but Solas meant it when he said he was more skilled than most. An extra millennia or two of practice would have that effect on a person.

The bruising, unfortunately, would take some time to fully fade, and he suspected it was this that upset Sera most. The ugly purple-yellow bruises mottling her swollen flesh made her look corpse-like. Waxy, rotting. Not like Lilith.

“She is fortunate she will not lose her eye,” he commented, and caught a sliver of anger thread through his tone. Another crushing blow landed just right could have-

Never mind what could have been.

He kept her asleep with a simple spell. It was…better that way. Solas could fix this, was confident in his abilities, but outwardly it still appeared…grim. Then again, the savage little brute might have enjoyed that. Still—he hoped this way she at least would feel no pain. There would be plenty of that in the days to come—possibly weeks, even. Solas hoped only to delay the suffering for as long as he could.

“What was she saying?” Sera asked. “All the elf-y stuff. What’d it mean?”

“ _Ama ash,”_ he echoed back. Something in his face darkened. “…protect her.” He broke his concentration to glance back at her for the first time. “The word she said to you, in the beginning—what was it?”

“ _Ladybird_. It means ‘shut up.’ Like, in case someone’s watching us, and we need to signal each other to shut it and play dumb.” She sniffed. “But that was supposed to be a stupid gag for parties or pranks and shit, not…she wasn’t supposed to get _hurt._ ” She buried her face behind the wall of her knees, arms pulled tight. “It meant ‘shut up.’ That counts as an order, yeah? I mean…she said _ladybird,_ what was I supposed to do?”

Whatever anger he’d let flare within him wilted. “You did as you were supposed to,” he said. “You listened.”

As he returned to work Sera was left to ruminate on that information with a thin, unhappy frown. “You don’t think they’d have really cut off her ears, do you?”

“They certainly would have tried. I cannot say whether or not they would have been successful.”

Sera didn’t seem to find comfort in that answer. She stared pensively at the fire with puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “She cut off their frigging _heads.”_

“So she did.”

“Like, a _lot_ of heads. Just sort of snatched ‘em right off.”

“It is hardly the first time she has done it.”

“…is that always how reavers work? Does she always have to get hurt?”

“I am not well-versed in the particular discipline,” he said. “But I understand it makes a difference, yes.”

She buried her face behind her knees again, only her eyes visible as she peered out beneath tousled, crooked-cut bangs. “Doesn’t seem natural, that.”

“It is not.”

“Is that… It’s not like magic, is it?”

“I do not know what it is like.”

“Just feels wrong, yeah? The whole business. All the blood and- stuff. What’s the point in kicking someone’s arse if it kicks yours, too?”

“Power,” he answered simply. “And the greatest power always comes at the greatest price.”

Sera went quiet for a long time before finally, quietly murmuring, “She’s gonna be okay, right?”

“Let us hope.”

“You’re supposed to lie and say ‘oh, yes, she’ll be just peachy.’ Don’t you know anything?”

Solas sighed. “Yes, Sera. She will be peachy.”

Another hour, another shaky battle willing flesh and bone to knit back together, and Solas finally insisted Sera go to bed. She refused with an emphatic shake of her head.

“Not ‘til she’s- Not yet. I’m not tired, anyway.” She watched his magic work with a morbid sort of fascination and dread all intertwined. “So when you do your magic heal-y witchcraft junk-”

“I am not a _witch_.”

“So when you do your magic heal-y demon-y mage junk,” she amended, “does it still leave a scar?”

“Not if done correctly, no. Any worthwhile healer will mend flesh before scar tissue can form.”

“Right.” She thought that over for a moment. “You should leave a scar. She’ll want a scar.”

“I am not going to purposefully leave a scar.”

“Okay,” she surrendered. “But you should.” She glanced around camp, lips pursed. “Do we still have the sword?”

“The what?”

“The sword.” She mimed a theatric stab through the gut. “She’s gonna want it.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I dunno. Put it on a plaque or something. ‘I handed a bunch of templars their arses and all I got was this lousy sword.’” When Solas glanced up to glower her way she huffed, offended. “What? You know it’s true.”

He held incredulous eye contact with her for no less than thirty full seconds before finally breaking. “…over there. By the tent.”

“You didn’t clean it off, did you?”

“What?”

“Is it still all bloody and gross?”

“I… Yes?”

“Good.” She gave a satisfied nod. “She’ll like that.” Her frown only screwed tighter though, gaze wandering unfocused to stare into the empty air. “She’s kind of scary, right? I mean good for us, ‘cause we could use scary, but if we weren’t us or she wasn’t her and it _wasn’t_ good, that’d be…scary.”

“Yes. I suppose it would be.”

“She snatched off their frigging _heads_.”

“Fortunate for us, then, that we were not the ones who impaled her on a sword.”

There were many, many things, he considered, that were fortunate.

Sera managed a grudging smile, but her face was still etched with anxiety. With fear. “I think…I think the sound was the worst bit. You know? Never gonna forget that sound…”

Solas had Lilith’s hand enveloped in his, warm pulses of healing magic slowly mending the fractures in her thumb. It was not the first time he’d healed this injury. Dislocated fingers. Fractured knuckles. To this day her right wrist made a horrid cracking sound when rotated, and on cold days the joints in her hands still ached from past traumas he couldn’t quite reverse. Troublingly, Solas was becoming rather used to the sound of breaking bone.

A wry shadow of a smile just barely tilted the stern line of his frown. “Worse than the knee incident?”

“Ugh, _bleh,_ nasty—don’t bring up the knee thing!”

“I did fix it. Eventually.”

“ _Don’t bring up the knee thing!”_

“If anything it should serve as a comforting example,” he said. “There is very little she cannot survive.”

“I guess? Still don’t wanna think about it. _Blech,_ just _saying_ it is gonna make me hurl. Can’t believe she thought she could land that jump. Friggin _nasty_.”

“I am not arguing with you,” he agreed. “But it does speak to her resilience.”

“Resilience, right. That’s a word for it. She’s kind of invincible, yeah?”

“No one is invincible.” Solas knew that better than most. Better than anyone, perhaps. “Everyone falls eventually.”

That, too, he knew better than anyone.

By the third hour Sera finally gave in and passed out in an uncomfortable-looking heap by the fire. By the fourth hour the rising sun faded the night sky to a dreary grey. Sera awoke at intervals to pester him with the same questions— _Is she okay? How much longer? When can she wake up?—_ and Solas soldiered through fear and anger and exhaustion to give the same answers with increasingly less patience. By the fifth hour he felt the morning frost turning his fingertips numb.

They were six hours in by the time she was finally stable enough for Solas to take a moment and let himself breathe. Her bones would be fragile for the time being, but would heal. The swelling was lessened, if only marginally, and the bruises were at least faded enough to take her visage from “horrifying” down to “unfortunate.” An improvement, still. The pain would be…better. He hoped.

He wanted to keep her asleep for as long as possible. Keep her still. Painless. But even he had his limits, and the suffocating scarcity of magic in this world took its toll. With his mana drained and energy sapped, he took a deep and steadying breath, and released the spell.

 


End file.
